Stevin Zorn

Lundbeck is one of the few drug companies working exclusively on diseases of the brain. Despite industry-wide failures in Alzheimer disease (AD), and industry-wide disinvestment in psychiatric drug development, Lundbeck has maintained a laser-like focus on these areas for more than 50 years. With the science increasingly pointing to a role for the immune system in these diseases, they are now ramping up their interest in neuroinflammation as well. In 2014 Stevin Zorn, executive scientist in residence at Lundbeck Research USA, a subsidiary of Lundbeck, helped launch a first-of-a-kind public–private partnership to explore this emerging space. He tells Asher Mullard about how industry and academic partners are working together to validate new approaches to both AD and depression, all the way into Phase II trials.